Josh can’t wait for Saturday’s “huge” game

Chorley’s own Josh Charnley has admitted he cannot wait to take on the world this weekend when his Wigan Warriors team face Australia’s Brisbane Broncos.

The two giants of Rugby League do battle at the DW Stadium on Saturday night in game two of the World Club Series which sees three English teams, all from the North West, face three Australian teams in what is being billed the Ryder Cup of Rugby League to see which competition is best.

Wigan face Brisbane either side of Warrington against St George Illawarra (Friday) and St Helens versus South Sydney Rabbitohs (Sunday).

The Warriors winger, speaking to the Chorley Guardian ahead of the game, said: “I’m really excited for this one, we want to show the world that we are one of the best teams and that Super League is the best competition out there.

“It’s a huge challenge because Brisbane have a lot of world class players who have played for Australia, New Zealand and Samoa so we’re going to have to be at our best.”

The Warriors are unbeaten in 2015 having drawn their first game with Widnes before beating Huddersfield last week, however Charnley believes they’ll need to improve for the game on Saturday.

“We’ve started ok,” he said, “but I think we’ll need to really be at one hundred per cent on Saturday if we are to beat the Broncos. You have to play for the full eighty minutes against a team as good as they are, we know that we have to be consistent and it’s something we’ll be working very hard on this week at training.”

Charnley has won Super League and Challenge Cup titles with the Warriors and represented England as recently as just a couple of months ago.

He ranks this game as equal to many of those finals and internationals. “Make no mistake, this game is huge for us. We’ve all had one eye on it since we restarted pre-season training and now it’s here we’re just itching to get out on to that field.

“The DW Stadium is going to be packed out on Saturday night, the atmosphere will be electric and it can’t come soon enough.”

Charnley and his Wigan team face Brisbane Broncos on Saturday, kick off 8pm. tickets are available from the DW Stadium ticket office, the ticket hotline – 0871 66 33 552 and online at wiganwarriors.com